With 9/11 Ceremony Now Set, Mayor Mulls Future

As the nation prepares to mark the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Friday that the city has made no decision about whether to continue reading the names of victims as part of an annual ceremony in future years.

“Some people have said, you know, we should go on forever,” Bloomberg said on his weekly radio show. “Some people have said change is good.”

The mayor said he plans to consult with board of the National Sept. 11 Memorial & Museum Foundation, on which he serves as chairman, and will then make a decision.

Stu Loeser, a spokesman for the mayor, later said that the foundation itself will have the final say on future anniversary ceremonies.

“We’ll talk to a lot of the family members and talk to a lot of the existing first responders and see what people think,” Bloomberg said. “You’re never going to have unanimity. There will always be dissention. And the papers will make a big deal of it.”

In recent days, the mayor has downplayed reports that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie have sought more control over this year’s 10th-anniversary ceremony. But the mayor reaffirmed Friday that the ceremony will be the same as it’s been for the past decade.

“The format is exactly the same as we’ve done 10 times now. We have a handful of people who have a direct connection leading this country back then and today who will each speak for — I don’t know — it’s 30 seconds or a minutes, something like that,” Bloomberg explained. “We give each of the speakers two or three poems or passages to pick from, so that there’s never an allegation of political speech.”

The mayor added: “From the point of view of the speakers, it’s one of the best things ever because nobody can criticize them.”

The speakers this year will be President Barack Obama, former President George W. Bush, former New York Gov. George Pataki, former New Jersey Gov. Donald DiFrancesco and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, as well as Cuomo, Christie and Bloomberg. It will be the first time a sitting president has attended the annual ceremony.

“Those eight are the speakers,” Bloomberg said. “You can rest assured, we have it right down to the second, same length (for everyone),” he added.

This post was updated at 5 p.m. to add a comment from a mayoral spokesman.